Hasan Sidat, drug awareness officer for Islamic Choices, which works across the whole of Lancashire targeting Muslim communities via their mosques, explains: "We don't have any more of a drug problem than anywhere else. There is a low take-up of services by Asian communities so there was a need for specific, targeted projects aimed at their communities to get information across."
Around a quarter of the population of Blackburn, where the project is based, is Muslim, giving the town the third biggest Islamic population in the UK. Islamic Choices was set up six years ago by Lancashire Council in conjunction with the police and the local health services in order to target the young Muslim community. Funding issues left the project on the sidelines until Sidat resurrected it eight months ago.
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